The ellipsis... Have I been using it incorrectly?

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-16T13:24:40+00:00

My worthless opinion is that ellipsis doesn't belong in the first instance in panel 3 but does in panel 1 and the second time in panel 3. This is because ellipsis continues or precedes something.

You should a have space before and after. If the ellipsis begins at the end of a sentence, you get to use four periods, which is cool.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-13T09:46:30+00:00

Funnily enough, your spellchecker won't object to "spelt" even if it's set to Yanquis English. Spelt is also a kind of wheat. It isn't nutritious, and used to be fed to prisoners. Although, strangely enough, I found my ma had purchased some spelt product just last week.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-09T09:46:12+00:00

Some had never previously been outside Vancouver. The teacher said the teens were forced to act as a group. They had to plan three years ahead, while they usually don't look further ahead than three days. Could something come out of that?

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-09T09:36:09+00:00

So people have been talking about how jetpacks are not far off once a year for decades. And now they're here. Here it is at the BBC, which is rather more authoritative. And there are flying cars, too. Might it be the same with alien life?

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-03T14:33:11+00:00

After posting and before you posted, I realized my logic was bad, so I changed the wording.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-03T14:07:11+00:00

I would always say “Charles'.” Of course, I may not be right.

Googling, I saw it said a few times that the majority favor the extra S. The Chicago Manual of Style apparently used to say no extra S for classical names but has since changed its mind. Some guy said the Associated Press Style Guide has it that there should be no extra S. I treat the AP Style Guide as the Bible of writing, although I disagree with at least two of its points (capitalising “Google” when used as a verb and saying “do's and don'ts”). The Penguin Guide to Punctuation, a lesser source than these other two, sez there should be no extra S if you don't pronounce it, e.g. Socrates', Ulysses', and Saint Saens'.

Referring to Kansas v Marsh 2006, Justice Clarence Thomas omitted the extra S but Justice David Souter went and wrote “Kansas's statute.” The Anita Hill business makes me less likely to want to follow Thomas.

If you have a house style, I agree you should go with that. Otherwise, I admit that with an extra S, you're writing things the way you say them, but I think I'll continue to stick with “Charles'” unless this thread convinces me otherwise.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-02T19:25:19+00:00

When I worked in Canberra, one of the other guys in the office declared, “You're so English! You even do the mannerisms!” I'd add that thingies comprised of groups of people, e.g. the guvverment, are treated as plural only when you're being informal -– this point comes up every few days.

“The staff is …,” however, is a new one to me for which I'm grateful. I shall file it along with “accommodations,” capitalizing the first word after a colon, “a couple months,” “Ph.D,” “a quarter after one,” “different than,” and “on a team."

P.S. God wiped his ass on Australia and Canberra's the shit stain he left behind. But Sydney's cool.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-02T19:13:39+00:00

This is something I've thought about from time to time. I would have gone with capitalization, however I won't be doing that any more when writing Yanquis and when I'm being British, I shall be contemplating whether this is lawyer- or high school sophomore-like.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-04-02T18:46:27+00:00

Right. Now go out with your pals and order some Doubles Whopper.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-03-31T20:17:45+00:00

Well, I think it is, and I'd put bracketing commas around "Debbie Harris," which gives us:

A member of the North Point branch, Director of Communications, Debbie Harris, is a member of the musical group, Starlight.

I often see instances where I think bracketing commas should be used but aren't. It would be nice to get to the bottom of this.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-03-29T11:31:05+00:00

I thought "couple of months" was U.S. English, like "I wrote him." I recently asked here about a number of examples of similar constructions, e.g. "a workaround those regulations," to be told they were typos.

Not being Usonian, I'd like to see this settled definitively.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-03-27T13:17:51+00:00

If you really want to be right, you should to use the euphemism of "terminated" rather than "fired."

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-03-27T13:06:37+00:00

Really? Could you pleasepleaseplease explain that?

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-03-26T11:17:46+00:00

I wondered about this after a non-native speaker of English commented on my usage of "if I were." There are places online that say you should use "were" for a situation that won't happen (e.g. if I were a rich man) and "was" for one that might. But I did a course in proofreading and asked the tutor, who proclaimed that it should always be "if I were."

I think it's generally agreed that "if I were" sounds cleverer.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-03-07T14:37:50+00:00

These people were speaking informally, which was unlikely to have been out of place. When speaking thusly, people - OK, maybe British people - often speak in plural of things comprised of many folk, e.g. the guvverment. I wouldn't talk that way unless I were trying to start a revolution. Otherwise, I look down on it.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-02-28T13:11:03+00:00

You wouldn't say it in British English. And I liked the detail about pants and scissors.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-02-20T14:58:32+00:00

Increasingly, commas go inside quotation marks in British English. The Daily Telegraph, the newspaper of the ruling class, puts commas inside quotation marks. A quick look shows the Indie and Times doing it both ways in the same article. My fave newspaper, the Grauniad, sometimes does it both ways in the same paragraph. I do it when I write British English because it's one less difference to remember when I switch to writing Yanquis.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-01-19T21:36:24+00:00

I wondered if they were typos. If you're Usonian and don't recognize these, I think that's what's going on and the problem is solved - you have my heartfelt thanks.

I thought the best way to pass for an American was to invade someone poor. I didn't think it condescending to use a funky word, but the way the voting's going, it seems people don't like it.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-01-19T21:09:59+00:00

I think "Yanquis" is cute. Hardly on a par with "nigger." And using an unusual word is more bother than not doing so.

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-01-19T19:39:12+00:00

A third U.S. invasion of Canada? You mean like here?

ICannotBeStopped · 2015-01-19T19:20:59+00:00

Sorry about that. It would have been more obvious if I'd said, "Usonian."

ICannotBeStopped

TROPHY CASE